Health – Page 624 – Infinite Unknown

CDC: U.S. swine flu cases now total 8; Never-before-seen form of the flu, combines pig, bird and human viruses

April 24, 2009 by Infinite

Neal Van Hoeven, a post-doctoral fellow at the Centers for Disease Control, examines a culture flask as he looks for any signs of growth in a stock of influenza virus in this 2008 handout image from the CDC, released April 24, 2009. (REUTERS)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A strange new strain of flu that may have killed as many as 60 people in Mexico has also sickened eight people in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

“Our concern has grown as of yesterday,” CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing.

“We do not have enough info to fully assess the health threat posed by this new swine flu virus.” He said 7 of 14 Mexican samples had tested positive for the new and unusual strain of H1N1 swine flu.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Patricia Zengerle)

Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:02am IST

Source: Reuters

Source: AP

ATLANTA – Health officials are investigating a never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses and which has infected seven people in California and Texas. All the victims recovered, but the cases are a growing medical mystery because it’s unclear how they caught the virus.

None of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, health officials said it’s not a cause for public alarm: The five in California and two in Texas have all recovered, and testing indicates some mainstream antiviral medications seem to work against the virus.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe it can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus.

The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

Mexico Shuts Some Schools Amid Deadly Flu Outbreak

April 24, 2009 by Infinite

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials, scrambling to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 16 people and possibly dozens more in recent weeks, shuttered schools from kindergarten to university for millions of young people in and around the capital on Friday and urged people with flu symptoms to stay home from work.

“We’re dealing with a new flu virus that constitutes a respiratory epidemic that so far is controllable,” Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told reporters late Thursday, after huddling with President Felipe Calderón and other top officials. He said the virus had mutated from pigs and had at some point been transmitted to humans.

Mexico’s flu season is usually over by now, but health officials have noticed a significant spike in flu cases. The World Health Organization reported about 800 cases of flu-like symptoms in Mexico in recent weeks, most of them among healthy young adults, with 57 deaths in Mexico City and 3 in central Mexico.

That is a worrisome pattern because seasonal flus typically cause most of their deaths among infants and old people, while pandemic flus — like the 1918 Spanish flu, and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics — often strike young, healthy people the hardest.

CDC: New H1N1 swine flu a mixture of swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia

November 26, 2009April 24, 2009 by Infinite

– CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study (2004):

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a “reassortant” virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.”

Pigs stick out their snouts through a fence at a farm. (REUTERS)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

All seven people have recovered but the virus itself is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans, the CDC said.

“We are likely to find more cases,” the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat told a telephone briefing. “We don’t think this is time for major concern around the country.”

The CDC reported the new strain of swine flu on Tuesday in two boys from California’s two southernmost counties.

Now, five more cases have been seen — all found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza. None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.

“We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring,” Schuchat said. “That’s unusual. We don’t know yet how widely it is spreading … We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world.”

Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio “and there’s a father-daughter pair in California,” Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases.

STRANGE MIXTURE

Unusually, said the CDC’s Nancy Cox, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

“We haven’t seen this strain before, but we hadn’t been looking as intensively as we have,” Schuchat said. “It’s very possible that this is something new that hasn’t been happening before.”

Germany bans Monsanto’s GM maize

April 14, 2009 by Infinite

Greenpeace has long campaigned against the planting of GM maize

Germany is to ban the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) maize – the only GM crop widely grown in Europe.

The decision, announced on Tuesday by German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner, is a blow to the US biotech firm Monsanto, which markets the maize.

Monsanto’s variety, called MON 810, is resistant to the corn borer, a moth larva which eats the stem.

MON 810 is controversial in the EU. Several countries have banned it, defying the European Commission.

Ms Aigner, a member of the conservative Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU), said she had concluded that “there is a justifiable reason to believe that… MON 810 presents a danger to the environment”.

The variety has been allowed in Germany since 2005. Ms Aigner said the decision to ban it now, based on new data, was purely scientific, not political. She also said it was a specific case, and not a fundamental decision against all GM crops.

In March EU governments resisted European Commission pressure to get bans on MON 810 lifted. The commission wanted Austria and Hungary to allow cultivation of MON 810. The variety is also banned in France and Greece.

The Messy Future of Memory-Editing Drugs

April 12, 2009 by Infinite

What a wonderful world!

The development of a drug that controls a chemical used to form memories sparked heady scientific and philosophical speculation this week.

Granted, the drug has only been tested in rats, but other memory-blunting drugs are being tried in soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. It might not be long before memories are pharmaceutically targeted, just as moods are now.

Some think this represents an opportunity to eliminate the crippling psychic effects of past trauma. Others see an ill-advised chemical intrusion into an essential human facility that threatens to replace our ability to understand and cope with life’s inevitabilities.

Oxford University neuroethicist Anders Sandberg spoke with Wired.com about the future of memory-editing drugs. In some ways, said Sandberg, our memories are already being altered. We just don’t realize it.

NEW DEADLY FARM MRSA BUG FOUND IN HOSPITALS

March 29, 2009 by Infinite

BAD BACON: The MRSA found in Dutch pigs has infected farmers and others

A DEADLY new form of MRSA is believed to be spreading from farm animals to humans – already the bacteria has been found in hospitals abroad.

It is the first time the bug has spread in this way and experts believe excessive use of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals may be behind its development.

“Farm animal” MRSA, as it is known, can cause a raft of illnesses including skin infections, pneumonia, bone infections and endocarditis.

The revelation raises fears about viruses and bugs moving from animals to humans in the way that Avian flu infected humans from poultry.

The new MRSA bug, known as ST398, could reach hospitals in the UK, causing serious illness and death among vulnerable patients.

The bug is not only in the animals but also in slaughtered meat. Scientists believe one way it could get into the UK is through contact with raw meat during food preparation.

Germany’s Mystery Cow Disease Causing Calves to Bleed to Death

March 29, 2009 by Infinite

Farmer Robert Meyboom: “Within two or three days, they were all dead.”

A mysterious illness is causing calves to bleed to death on German farms. Veterinarians are stumped over what is causing the deaths: vaccines, genetically modified feed or perhaps even the first mother’s milk?

What can a cattle farmer do when he sees blood running from his calves like water, when they become lethargic and febrile and, by the next morning, are lying dead on the floor, their coats covered in blood?

“Our calves from last summer looked like they had been beaten,” says farmer Robert Meyboom, who is still shocked and perplexed today. “The animals’ bodies were covered with drops of blood, and their eyes were bloodshot.”

The veterinarian tried everything, he says, including administering vitamins and blood-clotting agents. But nothing worked, and “within two or three days, they were all dead.”

Scientists film HIV spreading for first time

March 27, 2009 by Infinite

– Coconut Oil Against HIV & Aids (Natural News):
Scientists in the Philippines researched the effects of coconut oil and lauric acid on patients with the HIV virus that causes Aids.The results were amazing. Most of the Aids patients showed a dramatic drop in the HIV virus count, in some cases to “undetectable” levels.

Scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how HIV spreads through the human body after filming the process for the first time ever.

Researchers found that the virus is transferred from infected cells to healthy ones in a previously unknown way.

It is hoped that the discovery will help researchers create a vaccine to combat the virus, which has led to the deaths of more than 25 million people.

The study was made possible after experts created a molecular clone of infectious HIV and inserted a protein into its genetic code which glows green when exposed to blue light.

This allowed scientists to see the cells on digital video, and capture the way HIV-infected T-cells interact with uninfected ones.

They noted that when an infected cell came into contact with a healthy one, a bridge was created between them, called a virological synapse.

Researchers were then able to observe the fluorescent green viral particles moving towards the synapse and into the healthy cell.

Why the End of America is Closer than You Think

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

(CounterThink) I recently moved to Ecuador. Not for a vacation. Not for a month or two. I moved to Ecuador for good, as a permanent resident. Upon hearing my plans for living in South America, many people who knew me in the States asked things like, “Well what about the stability of Ecuador as a nation?” To which I would respond, “Oh, you mean the stability of banks that don’t make loans and don’t invest in derivatives? You mean the stability of a nation where the population still has the courage to march in the streets and throw corrupt officials out of its capitol?”

These questions make Americans pause. Most tend to think of public demonstrations as signs of a political instability. But in fact, public demonstrations are a sign of a healthy Democratic process. And Democracy is alive and well in Ecuador (with the usual level of corruption you find in any democracy).

It is in America, where the sheeple have been terrorized into staying inside the boundaries of their little “protest zones,” that you find a fragile, unstable nation.

Through complacency and fear-mongering, most Americans have become cowards when it comes to political activism. They think emailing their Senator a few times a year is all that’s required to defend freedom and preserve a nation. Marching in the streets is seen as uncivilized… or even unpatriotic! The government agrees with this, too, now labeling anyone who protests in public a “potential terrorist” and targeting them for FBI investigations. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C29…)

The multi-trillion-dollar theft scheme

In the mean time, while the sheeple of America are caught up in their hypnotic dreams of world domination, white-collar hoodlums in Washington D.C. and Wall Street are stealing everything!

The oft-repeated creation of $1 trillion in new money out of thin air by the Federal Reserve has made the U.S. dollar the laughing stock of the world. The leaders of the G20 nations have already decided to ditch the dollar and shift to other world reserve currencies, and China is now blatantly and publicly asking the U.S. put up some kind of collateral to back up future debt purchases, to which the U.S. says “Don’t worry about the debt. We’re good for it!”

CDC Takes Closer Look at Gardasil and Paralysis

March 23, 2009March 22, 2009 by Infinite

I know that those foreign proteins in the vaccine are also very, very destructive to the brain, the immune system and the entire body. In the wireless age you can forget about the protection of the brain through the blood-brain barrier, because just using a mobile phone or maybe even a cordless phone (DECT) opens the blood-brain barrier and all those toxins will destroy the brain. (The numbers of brain tumors will go through the roof in the next few years.)

The first moment your child shows signs of illness after a vaccination, besides from visiting a doctor, go immediately to an excellent classical homeopath. Homeopathy can literally save your child from autism, ALS, MS and any mental/physical development problems.

For vaccination damage in general:

Learn how to detoxify the body from aluminum, mercury and other toxins.

To detoxify the body of aluminum you may use Vitamin C (Acerola!) and Zinc (Zincorotat!).

Do not use homeopathy to detoxify the body from mercury, which is common in other vaccines. Use organic(!) Chlorella, AFA-algae, Spirulina, coriander, bear’s garlic (Allium ursinum), onions, garlic etc. instead.

Also use herbs to detoxify the body and to strengthen, especially the kidneys and the liver. A tea mixture should be prepared individually. Her is an example for a tea mixture: Herba Artemisiae cc., Herba Solidaginis cc., Herba Hederae terr. cc., Radix Bardanae cc., Radix Taraxaci cc., Radix Cichorii cc. in equal parts.

Go to a acupuncturist learn the important points for your child and massage (acupressure) them every day. If your child is old enough to understand that acupuncture treatments are meant to help, then you can do acupuncture as long as your child allows it. In young children just inserting the acupuncture needle and immediately withdrawing it is equal to 20-30 minutes of retaining the needle in adults. (A great master does not need needles anymore.)

Learn to focus on health for your child and do it the moment you wake up and before you go to bed for several minutes every day.

Watch the video with Dr. Bruce Lipton to improve your acceptance:
– Bruce Lipton – The New Biology – Where Mind and Matter Meet (!)
– Dr. Bruce Lipton Ph.D. – Changing Our Cells by Thought
This will change your life.

Dr. Bruce Lipton is a former medical school professor and research scientist.

(((Find and consult an excellent therapist that is worth its salt. Do not treat your child by yourself, if you are not a doctor or an alternative medicine practitioner, that knows what he/she is doing.)))

Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers were in a race against time to save their 15-year-old daughter, Jenny. As I reported last summer, Jenny developed a degenerative muscle disease nearly two years ago, soon after being vaccinated against the cervical-cancer-causing HPV. She became nearly completely paralyzed, though her mind was perfectly intact and she could still enjoy her pet parakeet, Hannah Montana, and Twilight.

I’ve been E-mailing Phil regularly over the past year, and up until our last E-mail, one week ago, he had been holding out hope that they would be able to find a cure for his daughter—or to at least determine if the human papillomavirus vaccine called Gardasil had caused his daughter’s illness, most likely a juvenile form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease). Sadly, the clock ran out last Sunday, and Jenny passed away.

Through their efforts to publicize Jenny’s case on their blog, Jenny’s parents have connected with two other sets of parents whose daughters developed what appears to be ALS after being injected with Gardasil. One was 22-year-old Whitney Baird, who died last August, just 13 months after receiving Gardasil. Another is Alicia Olund, a 12-year-old who began having trouble walking after getting her third shot last September. She now uses leg braces and a walker at home as her muscles continue to deteriorate. After ruling out other conditions, her specialists at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center—who also treated Jenny—suspect that Alicia may have the same condition. “They don’t know what she has,” her mother, Barbara, tells me through tears, “but it’s destroying her nerves and muscles, and none of the treatments they’ve given her are working. Before the vaccine, she was a perfectly healthy child, going for her brown belt in karate.” (They’re awaiting the results of the ALS test.)

IVF babies in health alert: Test-tube children 30 per cent more likely to have defects, warns watchdog

March 21, 2009 by Infinite

Couples are being warned an IVF pregnancy increases the risk of birth defects by up to 30 per cent

Couples having IVF treatment are to be warned for the first time that their children have a higher risk of genetic flaws and health problems.

Official guidance will make clear that test-tube babies could be up to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from certain birth defects.

The alert has been ordered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Government’s watchdog on fertility issues.

It means that the one in six British couples estimated to be infertile will have to balance their desire for a child against concerns that IVF methods could lead to life-threatening defects or long-term disabilities.

A Silenced Drug Study Creates An Uproar

March 18, 2009 by Infinite

The study would come to be called “cursed,” but it started out just as Study 15.

It was a long-term trial of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The common wisdom in psychiatric circles was that newer drugs were far better than older drugs, but Study 15’s results suggested otherwise.

As a result, newly unearthed documents show, Study 15 suffered the same fate as many industry-sponsored trials that yield data drugmakers don’t like: It got buried. It took eight years before a taxpayer-funded study rediscovered what Study 15 had found — and raised serious concerns about an entire new class of expensive drugs.

Study 15 was silenced in 1997, the same year Seroquel was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat schizophrenia. The drug went on to be prescribed to hundreds of thousands of patients around the world and has earned billions for London-based AstraZeneca International — including nearly $12 billion in the past three years.

The results of Study 15 were never published or shared with doctors, even as less rigorous studies that came up with positive results for Seroquel were published and used in marketing campaigns aimed at physicians and in television ads aimed at consumers. The results of Study 15 were provided only to the Food and Drug Administration — and the agency has strenuously maintained that it does not have the authority to place such studies in the public domain.

The Obama Deception

March 14, 2009March 14, 2009 by Infinite

1:51:21 – 12.03.2009
Source: Google Video

Baby bottles: controversial chemical not removed in UK despite bottle ban in US

March 14, 2009 by Infinite

A controversial chemical, Bisphenol-A (BPA), will not be removed from baby bottles in the UK, despite moves by manufacturers to stop using it in the US.

Baby bottles: controversial chemical removed from bottles in US – but not in Britain Photo: GETTY

The ban in the United States has come amid fears about the possible side effects of Bisphenol A, it emerged on Saturday.

Six American manufacturers say they are reacting to consumer demand by removing BPA from their bottles.

But they will continue selling bottles containing BPA in the UK, a decision which has prompted anger among campaigners.

A New Low in Drug Research: 21 Fabricated Studies

September 3, 2009March 12, 2009 by Infinite

We’ve followed plenty of controversies around drug trials, from ghostwriting to keeping quiet about unflattering results. But the latest news is particularly eye-popping: A prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies involving major drugs. Yikes.

Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., has asked several anesthesiology journals to retract the studies, which appeared between 1996 and 2008, the WSJ reports. The hospital says its former chief of acute pain, Scott S. Reuben, faked data used in the studies.

Some of the studies reported favorable results from use of Pfizer’s Bextra and Merck’s Vioxx, both painkillers that have since been pulled from the market. Others offered good news about Pfizer’s pain drugs Lyrica and Celebrex and Wyeth’s antidepressant Effexor XR. Doctors said Reuben’s work was particularly influential in pain treatment and that they were shocked by the news.

“We are left with a large hole in our understanding of this field,” Steven Shafer, editor-in-chief of Anesthesia and Analgesia, told Anesthesiology News, which first reported on the retractions. “There are substantial tendrils from this body of work that reach throughout the discipline of postoperative pain management.”

Pfizer had funded some of Reuben’s research and had also paid him to speak on behalf of its medicines. “It is very disappointing to learn about Dr. Scott Reuben’s alleged actions,” Pfizer said in a statement to WSJ. “When we decided to support Dr. Reuben’s research, he worked for a credible academic medical center and appeared to be a reputable investigator.”

California raw almonds must be treated, judge rules

March 10, 2009 by Infinite

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Monday upheld requirements that raw California almonds be treated to protect consumers from salmonella poisoning.

In a blow to organic almond producers and handlers, the Washington, D.C.-based judge rejected challenges to pasteurization requirements designed by the Almond Board of California. The Agriculture Department formally imposed the rules in March 2007, setting off sparks.

HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment

March 10, 2009 by Infinite

This is about taking away ‘real’ food from your table, so that you are left with ‘food’ or better GM trash that is loaded with poisons. More change coming!

5. März 2009
Source: YouTube

Campaign For Liberty

HR 875 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c1112RD9bb:e11439:

This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor. One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it. As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying. Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation. Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.

I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers. This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property seized. It will effect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it. It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods. If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a vareity of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed. That’s right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course.

DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, READ THIS LEGISLATION FOR YOURSELF. The more people who read this legislation the more insight we are going to get and be able to share. Post your observations and insights below. Urge your members to read this legislation and to oppose the passage of this legislation.

Pay special attention to

Section 3 which is the definitions portion of the bill-read in it’s entirety.
section 103, 206 and 207- read in it’s entirety.

Red flags I found and I am sure there are more………..

Legally binds state agriculture depts to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the states power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.
Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic.
Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal. There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
Section 207 requires that the state’s agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.
There are many more but by the time I got this far in the legislation I was so alarmed that I wanted to bring someone’s attention to it. (to the one person who reads my blog)

Didn’t Stalin nationalize farming methods that enabled his administration to gain control over the food supply? Didn’t Stalin use the food to control the people?

Last word…… Legislate religion and enforce gag orders on ministers on what can and can’t be said in the pulpit, instituting regulations forcing people to rely solely on the government, control the money and the food. What is that called? It is on the tip of my tongue……….

Concerns over safety of cervical cancer vaccine after 1,300 girls experience adverse side-effects

March 9, 2009 by Infinite

Some people are making an awful lot of money with destroying the health of your children.

Doctors found 1,300 of the 700,000 girls who received the cervical cancer vaccine last year experienced adverse reactions

More than 1,300 schoolgirls have experienced adverse reactions to the controversial cervical cancer jab.

Doctors have reported that girls aged just 12 and 13 have suffered paralysis, convulsions and sight problems after being given the vaccine.

More information:
– Spain withdraws cervical cancer shot (Gardasil) after illnesses
– Gardasil Vaccine: Almost 8000 adverse reactions, reports CDC
– Two More Girls Die After Receiving Gardasil Cervical Cancer Vaccination
– Girl Paralysed 30 Minutes After Cervarix Vaccination

Dozens were described as having pain ‘in extremity’ while others suffered from nausea, muscle weakness, fever, dizziness and numbness.

Baxter: Product contaminated with live H5N1 avian flu virus

November 26, 2009March 6, 2009 by Infinite

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

THE EFFECT OF MICROWAVE EMISSION FROM MOBILE PHONES ON NEURON SURVIVAL IN RAT CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

March 1, 2009March 1, 2009 by Infinite

Source: Scribd

How to save new brain cells that are created every day of your life

February 22, 2009 by Infinite

Fresh neurons arise in the adult brain every day. New research suggests that the cells ultimately help with learning complex tasks—and the more they are challenged, the more they flourish

Recent work, albeit mostly in rats, indicates that learning enhances the survival of new neurons in the adult brain. And the more engaging and challenging the problem, the greater the number of neurons that stick around. These neurons are then presumably available to aid in situations that tax the mind. It seems, then, that a mental workout can buff up the brain, much as physical exercise builds up the body.

The findings may be particularly interesting to intellectual couch potatoes whose brains could benefit from a few cerebral sit-ups. More important, though, the results lend some support to the notion that people who are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or who have other forms of dementia might slow their cognitive decline by keeping their minds actively engaged.

It’s a New Neuron!

In the 1990s scientists rocked the field of neurobiology with the startling news that the mature mammalian brain is capable of sprouting new neurons. Biologists had long believed that this talent for neurogenesis was reserved for young, developing minds and was lost with age. But in the early part of the decade Elizabeth Gould, then at the Rockefeller University, demonstrated that new cells arise in the adult brain—particularly in a region called the hippocampus, which is involved in learning and memory. Similar reports soon followed in species from mice to marmosets, and by 1998 neuroscientists in the U.S. and Sweden had shown that neurogenesis also occurs in humans [see “New Nerve Cells for the Adult Brain,” by Gerd Kempermann and Fred H. Gage; Scientific American, May 1999].

In rodents, studies of neurogenesis generally involve injecting the animals with a drug called BrdU (bromodeoxyuridine), which marks newly formed cells, making them stand out when viewed under a microscope. Those studies indicate that in rats, between 5,000 and 10,000 new neurons arise in the hippocampus every day. (Although the human hippocampus also welcomes new neurons, we do not know how many.)

Food banks report 30% increase in demand

February 15, 2009 by Infinite

Food banks toss out food linked to peanut recall

CHICAGO – Food banks nationwide are chucking thousands of pounds of food containing peanut products recalled in the salmonella outbreak — a particularly painful process as those same pantries struggle to meet a growing demand to feed families in a floundering economy.

Foods like granola bars, cereals, cookies, nut mixes and peanut butter have long been a mainstay of pantries because of their durability and long shelf life.

“It’s just been rotten. It’s just been a problem for us,” said Betsy Ballard, spokeswoman for the Houston Food Bank, which already has discarded 3,000 pounds of recalled products.

Millions of U.S. families depend on charity organizations to put food on the table, and the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, Feeding America, says food banks across the country reported a 30 percent increase in demand in December 2008 compared with the previous year.

Toxic cabin air found in new plane study

February 14, 2009 by Infinite

“Scientists, former pilots and aviation pressure groups have accused the industry of knowing about the problem for decades and doing little to tackle it. But reports linking exposure to contaminated air with long-term harm to health have led to an increase in passengers and crew seeking redress, according to lawyers in the United States.”

Samples taken secretly from the planes of popular airlines have raised fresh concerns over passengers inhaling contaminated air.

Hundreds of incidents of contaminated air have been reported by British pilots Photo: GETTY

Fresh concerns about whether passengers could be inhaling contaminated air on aircraft have resurfaced, after undercover investigators claimed to have found high levels of a dangerous toxin on board several planes.

As part of an investigation by a German television network, ARD, and Schweizer Fernsehen (Swiss television), 31 swab samples were taken secretly last month from the aircraft cabins of popular airlines.

These were analysed in laboratories at the University of British Columbia, under the supervision of Prof Christian van Netten, a leading toxicologist.

Twenty-eight were found to contain high levels of tricresyl phosphate (TCP), an organophosphate contained in modern jet oil as an antiwear additive, which can lead to drowsiness, headaches, respiratory problems or neurological illnesses.

Scientists refer to the condition as Aerotoxic Syndrome. Dr Mackenzie Ross, a clinical neuropsychologist at University College London, says the illness may be affecting up to 200,000 passengers each year.

Spain withdraws cervical cancer shot (Gardasil) after illnesses

February 11, 2009 by Infinite

MADRID (AFP) – Spanish health authorities have withdrawn tens of thousands of doses of a vaccine against cervical cancer after two teenagers who received the shots were hospitalised, regional authorities said on Tuesday.

A batch of nearly 76,000 doses of the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) was withdrawn from market, a government statement said, after two girls in the eastern Valencia region fell seriously ill hours after receiving them.

“One of the girls got out of intensive care this weekend and the other is still there. Both are in stable condition,” a Valencia health department spokeswoman told AFP.

China Culls 13,000 Poultry After Bird-Flu Outbreak

February 11, 2009 by Infinite

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — China said it culled more than 13,000 poultry after discovering the H5N1 strain of avian flu on a farm in Xinjiang province, five days after saying none of the human cases this year were linked to outbreaks among birds.

The outbreak in the northwestern province, which began at the start of this month, is the country’s first since December, China’s Chief Veterinary Officer Yu Kangzhen said in a Feb. 10 report (PDF) to the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris. It said 1,330 farmed birds were infected with avian flu and 519 died.

Authorities have vaccinated 350,000 birds in Xinjiang in an effort to stop the virus spreading, Yu said in the report. China’s Ministry of Agriculture said the outbreak had been controlled, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

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A 31-year-old woman died in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi on Jan. 23 after contracting the H5N1 virus, the official Xinhua News Agency said on Jan. 24, citing the regional health department.

The Ministry of Agriculture said there had been no avian flu outbreaks among poultry in the provinces where human infections were reported, the official China Daily reported on Feb. 6.

Eight people have been infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu in China this year and five have died, Nyka Alexander, a Beijing-based spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News today.